Kitchen renovation - yay or nay

[Glitterfish]

Large kitchen or separate kitchen and dining room? Which is better you?
I'm posting here for traffic as we argue this out.
is a big renovation worth it? It'll mean knocking through wall in a very old house which always brings issues e.g. bracing beams needed as very old hous, to make a largesr kitchen with seating area and stove as opposed to leaving it as its with separate kitchen and dining room? Kitchen has table for eating but a bit cramped as it had huge amount of storage.
Aibu - leave as is -not worth it
Yabu- itd be much better

It's hard to advise based only on what you've written

Do you use your dining room?

How long do you intend to stay there?

What's your budget?

What's your objective with the renovation?

Yes, I think there are too many unknown variables for anyone to advise. If I were planning to stay there forever and didn't care about having a separate dining room, the cost and temporary inconvenience could be worth it to make a more useable space. I like a casual home, so a larger, comfortable dine-in kitchen would appeal to me, but some people hate seeing the clutter of a kitchen and want to be able to close the door on the sights, sounds, and smells when they're not actively cooking.

Can you extend the kitchen as another option?

Perhaps get a quote to knock through and quote to extend?

Can you rejig kitchen to make it better on space as a third option?

We knocked through, then later did an extension to create a new large kitchen/family room. It is rather the Hub of the house and is onto the garden. So good, but cost a fair bit extra on the mortgage.

Can't extend kitchen any other way and rejig options not good We have small seating area in current kitchen and use dining room whee we have people for dinner etc. No plans to move house at present but wouldn't say never - would this as pure detract from value. Don't have final figure but estimate at 15kish. We would get some as loan and are fine to repay. Not sure if it's worth it both cost and disruption wise.

But do love the idea of a large open kitchen

How old is the house? Is it listed?

I prefer a separate dining room but I accept this is old fashioned

Presumably £15k is excluding kitchen units, fitting, flooring etc?

Where is your dining table at the moment? In the kitchen or in a separate room? If separate, do you eat at the table in that room?
Does the person who is cooking feel cut off from the rest of the household or do they prefer it that way?
If you knocked through, would you still have a separate living space? And will you be able to close the door on kitchen/dining area from rest of the house?

I would try to move as much storage and other stuff (e.g. washer/dryer/freezer) out of the kitchen as possible, to make it a more relaxed seating area, rather than knock down walls, tbh.

You're not going to be able to do structural work such as knocking down a wall, support beams + new kitchen, floors, electrics, plumbing, etc etc etc on £15k.

This is the only way to increase kitchen due to location in house and style of house.
We don't use the dining room all the time, just when we have people over for dinner but i want to be able to have room for 6-8 for dinner.
We have looked at options for changing existing kitchen but nothing seems to work. Sorry yes budget would be more 15 for kitchen and same again for structural work though that might be a bit low 😕

Washing machine, dryer and large freezer already in shed. Can't move anything else out. In new design I'd have room for Washing machine inside which would be great in winter.

In your circumstances I would, 15k or so to make use of a room you hardly use sounds worth it to me.
I did similar in my old house and it cost 24k about 15 years ago and that included a new kitchen that I designed myself.

If you want to use the dining table when you have people over then definitely knock through otherwise everyone will be chatting in one room and you/your partner will be in the kitchen.
You may find you use the table much more once it is in the kitchen. Otherwise, I think it’s a waste to have a room you rarely use.

I would. We did this about 15 years ago (in an Edwardian terrace, so not a 'very old house', but it did involve structural work) and it's made the most gigantic difference. It was disruptive for three months but so, so worth it.